What's a good book for a relative beginner?

What is better about the other trainers, specifically? 

Can you explain, specifically, why? What's different?

The best way for you to understand is to try it.  And read their forums while you're at it.

Chess mentor is good but its definitely not as good as Silman's actual books like Amateurs Mind. I can also play free chess on quite a few other free chess servers that wont spam me with ads. As long as chess.com improves their features Im fine paying them money. If they just restrict their features to free members, spam more ads, and come up with programs that cost money outside of the regular membership (aka not improving the experience of diamond members and below) than I wont support them. They've reduced the restrictions for free members in live chess, so I think they are beginning to move in the right direction and it's why I have an account. That and slow chess+awwrats group.

I was using chesstempo today. 

Amateur's mind is NOT for 'beginners'??  It's for tournament level amateurs, a rated 1200 is HARDLY a  'beginner'.  The Chess Mentor starts at the VERY first elements of chess, and it works all the way up to master level strategy studies.

"The God Delusion" is probably the best one to start with. Until you free your mind you'll always be fighting through a lot of noise when trying to concentrate.

They got to BigKingBud good.

I don't get you guys?? He says he's a beginner, and he needs a book.  Chess.com's tactics trainer, and Chess Mentor are about AS GOOD AS ITS GONNA GET(for a beginner).  True, we can 'split hairs', but JESUS CHRIST he's a beginner.

I got serious about chess around the turn of the millineum.  I went out and bought Silman's reaccess your chess.  That book was WAY OVER MY FREAKING HEAD.  I lost interest, and unfortunately I've spent much of the last 15 years completely lost, going in and out of chess playing binges, and 'study', simply because I didn't have the 'fundamentals' of a rated 1000 8 year old chess student. 

If I hadda had chess.com's tools back then?  I may have a FIDE rating, instead?  I'm a crappy 1200-1500 on chess.com.

Learn from my mistakes, get your fundamentals straight,  RIGHT HERE on this freaking website.  It costs 7$ a freaking month, 7 gotdamned dollars.  That's like NOTHING!  Quit thinking you're 'getting one over' on chess.com, by not paying there mid ranged fee.  These MFers work like damn dogs to keep this ship floating, pay up hobos!  And learn your fundamentals.

Awesome. 

it seems no one can articulate what is better about CT...

The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games (list: $10.95).

It's a fantastic collection of the best games with annotations that will help anyone from beginner to master!

Everything.  There's not a single person who will use both TT and CT and come away saying TT is better or even remotely comparable.  It's a shame you can't get a trial of CT to see what all the advanced features are like because it completely blows TT out of the water.  TT is basic and limited.   CT is the Deluxe Championship Turbo Edition of chess tactics servers.

Go to CT and click on the link to see what the premium features are.   Most people would be able to tell from that and clicking the feature links why it's better.

The only thing I heard that CT has over TT, that is valuable, is that you can create problems sets (if you are willing to pay).

How convenient, just ignore people who have specifically stated whats better and then claim no one has. Well I'm not sure if thats convenient or if you just werent reading carefully. Go back and look at my post in page 3. Thats just a simple explanation of why CT is much better, not even taking into account the many advanced features dealing with problem sets and statistical data they have.

"Go back and look at my post in page 3."

You have no posts on page 3.

I'm not a huge fan of Silman. He did not invent the term "imbalance" as some may have you believe. His first editions of How to Reassess Your Chess are completely different from his fourth edition, so much so that I believe he should have used a different title for his latest, best version. 

Some of Rdecredico's complaints are well founded. My main complaints are that many of his rules are too general, and some of his rules are almost completely useless. One rule that doesn't work for me is "attack in the direction of the pawns". This rule is right about half the time, when you can figure out which directions the pawn point in the first place. 

Having said all that, the book has helped large numbers of class players. There's a saying about chess books. The book you read is the book that will help you. If you read Silman's book, it will help. If you read almost any thoughtful book it will help. 

I personally rather like Pandolfini's books, but I know they aren't as popular among chess coaches as others. I also like Lars Bo Hansen's Improve your Chess($11.95). 

http://www.amazon.com/Improve-Your-Chess-Learning-Champions/dp/1906454124/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416145562&sr=1-1&keywords=Improve+your+chess+Hansen

Like Reb, I grew up reading Chernev, Horowitz, and similar American authors. What they did was fuel my love for the game. Their books weren't nearly as good as others I read later, but they were filled with passion. 

The first book I owned was Chess World Championship 1972: Fischer vs. Spassky by Larry Evans and Ken Smith. It had a diagram for every move. Larry Evans wrote his own commentary and Ken Smith provided extra analysis culled from other sources including "Soviet grandmasters". I was about eleven when I found that book. I studied that book like a Bible. I went through every single comment and played through the variations in my head. That was my first step into serious chess analysis. It has also been published under another name. If you find it, it's still worth picking up. It still is on sale for only $9.95.

http://www.amazon.com/Chess-World-Championship-Fischer-Spassky/dp/0671215477/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416145239&sr=1-1&keywords=Chess+World+Championship+1972%3A+Fischer+vs.+Spassky

I recommend a good, well-annotated game collection as a first book for most people who already know how the pieces move. See my post #169 for one such book.  Tactics trainers are also excellent, but the internet is probably a better source for that sort of training these days. There are plenty of free tactics training sites out there now. 

I would just like comment once again that although I didn't start this thread I'm very grateful for the nourishment that I've gotten from it. Fyi I've used tactics trainers on chess.com, chesstempo.and chess.emrald.net and have improved though using all of them. I prefer chess.com but that is just my subjective opinion and it's not more weighty than anyone else's. I'll be going to Barnes and Noble later today in order to augment my chess book "collection ". I think using tactics trainers, reading books and playin lots of games is a great way to improve no matter what individual elements are chosen

Sorry page 8, I somehow thought this was page 4 of the thread.